Nokia’s Anthropologist publishes a report on mobile phone sharing

Jan Chipchase is a  canny observer of communication practices who roams the world as an anthropologist for Nokia (NYSE: NOK). His current report, with Indri Tulusan, is on mobile phone sharing — an important socio-technical practice, especially in the developing world.

Much of the growth in the telecommunications industry is coming
from emerging markets - places like India and Africa and for many new
consumers their first mobile phone experience is a shared one. This
essay uses the term sharing in the sense of primary usage orientated
around borrowing and lending rather than ‘let me show you the photos I
took at last night’s party’. Mobile phone sharing is not just limited
to personal use - from the streets of Cairo to Kampala kiosks are
springing up with little more than a mobile phone and a sign
advertising call rates. What happens when people share an object that
is inherently designed for personal use? And based on how and why
people share in what ways can devices and services be redesigned to
optimise the shared user experiences? Indeed, should they be
re-designed?

A summary of this essay appears here
and a presentation that compliments this essay entitled Shared Phone
Practices: Exploratory Field Research from Uganda and Beyond can be
downloaded from the resesarch dot Nokia dot com site here
[7MB, PowerPoint]. In time, related posts on Power Up: Street Charging
Services in Kampala, Rural Charging Services, Community Address Books
& Call Logs and the Village Phone, Uganda will be listed here.

Source: Smart Mobs

Do you let other people touch your phone? I mean I’m a bit of a hypocrite, I love playing with other peoples phones but if anyone even tries to grab my device I’ll go loco.